


Distantly, he heard her, the first chapter in a story that had volumes to go

by dem_hips



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dem_hips/pseuds/dem_hips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sandman is in charge of protecting the dreams of children.  It's when he can't let them go as they grow up that his job is the hardest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distantly, he heard her, the first chapter in a story that had volumes to go

breathe  
  
breathe, he hummed  
  
and there, outside her little glass box, whistled a golden wind  
  
her eyes lit up  
  
she wanted that wind, wanted so selfishly to contain it and let it fill her up  
  
she breathed  
  
the wind could not penetrate her box  
  
but her chest rose and fell  
  
and she found that was reward enough  


* * *

  
She had mastered breathing.  
  
Wasn’t that enough?  
  
Now she had to move.  
  
Moving took so much energy.  
  
And why should she bother?  
  
What on Earth could be better than anything inside her crib?  
  
They urged her to crawl.  
  
They urged her to come investigate.  
  
The doctor had said it would be good for her.  
  
She slept instead.  
  
In her dreams she saw bars.  
  
They were the bars of her crib.  
  
The bars lowered.  
  
There was a boy.  
  
The boy was her playmate.  
  
He showed her wonderful things until it was time to wake up again.  
  
She untangled herself from her tubes and cords.  
  
And then she explored as far as they would let her.  
  
She could still see her friend at the edge of her vision.

* * *

On the first day, she sat on the bench and watched.  
  
Children were playing in the field.  They were smiling and laughing and happy.  She kicked her legs and tapped on her tank and watched them.  
  
She was not smiling.  Or laughing.  Or happy.  
  
Her friend visited her again that night.  
  
Again, she was sitting on the bench, watching faceless, nameless children playing.  
  
Her friend squatted down beside her.  He smiled.  And then he poured before her a pile of golden sand.  
  
The sand swirled, and then it flattened out into a large board in her lap.  
  
Slowly, she traced a finger over the board.  The sand darted away from her finger to the sounds of laughing children.  
  
In the sand on the board, she drew the happy, laughing children before her, and their faces slowly grew sharper and more detailed.  
  
Her friend smiled at her.  She smiled back.  
  
On the second day, she drew the children playing on the field.  
  
When the bell rang, everyone gathered around to see.

* * *

  
She missed her friends.  They came to visit when they could, but she missed sitting in class with them.  She missed listening to the teachers and doodling them on her notes when their backs were turned.  She missed sharing her doodles with her friends, and she even missed getting in trouble when they laughed too loudly.  
  
There were plenty of doctors and nurses to doodle here.  But few people to share the doodles with.  
  
She missed lunch period and art class and music class and even math class.  She even missed taking tests.  
  
There were tests here, but her body usually failed them.  Studying didn’t help.  
  
When she slept, sometimes, her friend would appear.  He was older now, like she was.  He had grown with her.  He had a gentle smile when he walked with her into the college, a serious expression when he sat with her and listened to faceless, white-coated people teaching about lymph nodes.  
  
She listened studiously and took notes on everything.  But the notes could not follow her out of the dreams, and neither could her friend.

* * *

Medical school was far too expensive, her parents had told her, and even as they said so she could see the guilt and the pain in their eyes.  
  
She told them not to blame themselves.  It was her fault they had spent so much money already on hospitals and medicines and tests.  They had hugged her and told her no, no, this wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t her fault she was born like this.  
  
She heard her mother crying, that night.  
  
When she slept, she dreamed of the university again.  This time, her friend stood up at the front of the room, looking perfect in his white coat.  He was explaining the biochemical process of converting years of suffering into opportunities.  She took notes furiously.  
  
They were gone in the morning.  But one word had branded itself into the front of her brain.   _Scholarships._   The hospital knew some she could apply for.

* * *

The lecture hall was just as she remembered from her dreams, except the professors had names and faces and sometimes tempers, and when she wrote notes, they stayed on the page, though not necessarily in her head.  In addition, of course, her friend was missing, but she made lots of new friends, all of whom were very interested in her immune system—purely in a professional sense, you understand.  She became so busy she had little time to think about him, anyway.  And she slept so little, nowadays.

* * *

He was standing over her when she fainted in the hall in her second semester, just briefly.  
  
He was smiling, but he looked so, so sad.

* * *

It had been two years.  Sometimes she would dream of the university again.  Usually her friend was beside her, taking notes, comparing notes, comparing grades.  
  
Sometimes he would be standing up there teaching.  So smart.  So brave.  So strong, to be doing what she could not.  
  
Once, he tried to encourage her to do the same.  
  
She awoke with a gasp.  
  
Sensors were buzzing everywhere.  
  
Everything hurt.

* * *

She had been teaching for a while, now.  Every day, she would come in with her briefcase and her smart three-piece suit, and she would stop at the front of the lecture hall in her starched white coat and look up at the hopeful, promising young faces all watching her from tiered seats.  She taught them about the lymph nodes and about the brain and the nerves and the individual little cells of their skin.  She taught them about how the heart worked and how the lungs helped it along and about each bone and how they protected everything, how they housed all the vital organs like sturdy, calcified bars of a crib.  She taught them about life, and she taught them about death, and she taught them about everything in between.  She taught them about death that looks like life, and about life that looks like death.  On and on, day after day, the time passed without her feeling the motions of the Earth.  The feet that stood at the front of that room were weightless.  Her heart was lighter than it had ever been.  Somewhere in the crowd of students whose faces were faint memories, her friend watched her teach, and listened.  And he smiled, his eyes full of proud tears.

* * *

That night was freezing, so he watched from inside this time, ready to dart away at a moment’s notice, if someone were to enter.  He almost forgot to, when the regular blips and beeps running across her eternally closed eyelids slowed…slowed…slowed…and stopped, and a cadre of nurses came rushing in.  
  
He almost forgot to dash out, to close the door behind him, but he did, dutifully, for he was no spirit of youth.  
  
From the corner of the window, he watched them cover her with a sheet.  One of them left for the phone.  The others shut off the high-rises of equipment and unplug machines and slowly wheel her out.  
  
Only once she was gone from his vision did the Sandman look away, up at the stars.  He sighed heavily, and, drifting back into the sky, reached inward and closed another door.


End file.
